A Christmas Story

Merry Christmas, friend. :)

Beautiful post.

Merry Christmas, John.

Nice post. Have a prolific new year!

What we have today is the tail wagging the dog. We are letting a few cranks and malcontents ruin the fun for everybody.

Exactly.

"Wishing y'all a Very Merry Christmas! "

Amen

Merry Christmas, John! :^D

Merry Christmas John. May you have a prosperous and Inspiring new year.:)

Merry Christmas, John, thanks for all the inspiring posts.

> ping <

Would love to hear your reaction to this!

Thanks for the ping, John. And a Merry Christmas (and Happy New Year) to you too.

But there was another reason for not objecting to the Christmas carols, and for singing them at home. They were wonderful music, and we liked music in our family. We never sang “Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer” or “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” at home because we considered them inferior songs. They were fun to sing sometimes, but they couldn’t compare with the poetry and melodiousness of the real Christmas carols …
Those real carols were written by people who loved Christmas, who loved Jesus and the story of his birth. They were talented composers and talented writers and they put their feelings and their gifts into the songs, and that’s why the songs were still loved and sung decades or even centuries later …
They were sung by the mostly black students at my elementary school, even though every one of the songwriters was white. They were sung by the few Jews whose families had remained in the neighborhood. And they were sung by my sister and me, the children of Atheist communists. They were part of our common heritage …

Now school children … are too busy with other things to have assemblies devoted to singing, the way we did decades ago … They will grow up with advertising jingles their common musical culture from childhood, and little connection to the long, beautiful tradition of Christmas music.

Thanks for the ping, Steve, and for posting this wonderful essay, John.

I read this essay aloud to my husband, who responded, ‘Amen!’

Rick grew up in a Jewish home, and attended a high school (graduating in ’63) whose students were predominantly Jewish. His high school assemblies always opened with a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13, an outline offered by Christ as to how we should pray) and real Christmas carols (Silent Night, Joy to the World, Hark the Herald Angels Sing … as opposed to Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer … ) were sung in music class during the Christmas season. No one – student, parent, teacher, or administrator – ever objected. And all participated – even those who were not Christians. And the sharing in the joy of the season, and participating in its music, were an accepted part of school activities, for all of the reasons cited in this excellent essay.

But those were the (for the most part) tolerant, united, patriotic 50s and early 60s (the Leave it to Beaver era that leftists love to claim never existed, or choose to deride as simplistic and unenlightened). These are the intolerant (posing as tolerant), divisive, me-oriented 00s (the Desperate Housewives era that leftists choose to portray as more honest and progressive). So we must dissect every tradition and find some sort of malevolent purpose at its origin – especially if the tradition has its roots in Christian belief.

An aside ‘Christmas story’ …

For our choir Christmas anthem this year, I selected a difficult (both vocally and instrumentally) anthem which combined Bach’s C Major Prelude and the traditional Austrian carol, ‘Still, Still, Still’. So as not to overwhelm the choir by introducing it to them a month or so before Christmas (as I would normally do), I had them begin working on it all the way back in August – just a few minutes out of each practice each Sunday morning – so as to ‘wade into’ (just a few measures each week) a difficult and demanding piece of music. By early December, both the choir and our pianist were feeling fairly confident with their knowledge of the music, and it looked as though it was all going to come together well by Christmas.

Then in mid-December I attended a Christmas concert in which one of my piano students was performing. I happened to notice that one of the young flute players in the orchestra seemed to be exceptionally good, so I approached her after the concert and asked her if she had ever accompanied a choir. She told me that she had not, but seemed to be receptive to the idea.

Long story short … our Bach Christmas piece has an optional flute accompaniment – very difficult in itself, but made even moreso by the need to synchronize with both the piano accompaniment and the four-part choral music as well (all of which are following different melodies/harmonies/rhythms throughout).

This young twelve-year-old (I’ll call her Sarah) agreed to take a look at the piece, and then to meet with me and our choir pianist at church on Christmas Eve afternoon to see whether this could be pulled together as a choral/piano/flute piece at the last minute. The three of us spent about two hours together Friday afternoon, and were feeling pretty confident that this could be done, but the test would be to see whether she could pull it off with only an hours practice this morning at 8:00 with the choir, preceding our performance at the service at 10:00.

The practice went very well, the choir was absolutely thrilled (vast understatement) with the addition of the beautiful flute accompaniment, and it added an incredibly delicate, ethereal dimension to the anthem.

After our practice, during the Sunday school hour (in which Sarah was supposed to attend the teenage class this morning), I was doing some work down in my choir office in the church basement, when she knocked on the door and came in. It was immediately obvious that she was experiencing a major case of cold feet – pretty close to a full-fledged panic attack. She told me that she didn’t believe she could go through with the performance ‘in front of the whole church’ – and that her ‘heart was racing’ and she was ‘more nervous than she had ever been’.

We sat there in my office and talked for a while, and I told her about my first time playing without a school orchestra backing me up (sharing some embarrassing youthful moments), and assuring her that if she still felt this way – even right before the performance – she could simply walk out of the choir loft when I stood up to direct, and there would be no embarrassment in doing that. I also assured her that her flute added a beautiful dimension to the piece, but that the choir would do just fine with piano accompaniment alone if she were not able to perform. She said that she would be willing to try, seeming to be calmed in the knowledge that the last-minute option to back out was available.

Then we moved our chairs so that we were sitting face-to-face, took each others’ hands, and prayed together, asking that the Lord would provide His peace and His strength so that she might use her gift to His glory this morning. But, if she did not feel confident enough to do so, that she be comfortable with her decision to walk away, with the knowledge that there will be other opportunities at other times.

She sat next to me in the choir loft during the service this morning, knowing that we were to perform right after the pastor offered a prayer. As he was praying, I noticed that her hands began shaking slightly, so I reached over and took one of them in mine, and we held hands, firmly, until the pastor ended his prayer.

With his ‘amen’, I stood and walked to my place in front of the choir, interested to see whether Sarah would take her place behind her music stand next to me or quietly walk out the side door. She didn’t leave. Flute in hand, she walked up to her music stand. This morning, her first time accompanying a choir, and playing a difficult arrangement of a Bach Prelude, Sarah played flawlessly. When I left church this morning, several people were still congratulating her on a job well done.

I can’t tell you how many times in my life I have felt inadequate for a task at hand. But … invariably … when I seek out some quiet time, take my cares and concerns to Him, and look to Him for the peace of mind, strength and direction necessary, He never fails. He didn’t fail Sarah this morning. And this morning a beautiful piece by one of the great masters was made even more beautiful by Sarah’s willingness to use her gift to His glory.

~ joanie

What a great story. And what a great kid, and what a great choir leader. :-)

You have mail.

I turn 55 next month. When I was in public elementary school, we prayed every day. The teacher would lead us in a prayer and then one kid would be chosen to read from the bible. One of my class mates, a Jewish kid was getting ready for his Bar Mitzva and actually practiced his hebrew on us. That went on for a couple of weeks until even the other Jews got bored.

The point is, to my knowledge no harm was done. Plus, I learned a little hebrew

Dear sweet friend, I hope you had a Godly Christmas and that your new year will be Spirit-filled.

Love & Kisses,
Judy

Thank you for a beautiful post.

Thanks for the ping!

Thanks for the ping to a great story.

Joanie, you are an angel. And Sarah is a brave and talented young lady.

You're very welcome, my friend. And Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours as well.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to y'all too!